


Sirius Black stumbles through life with (lots of) assistance

by APictureofaGull



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First War with Voldemort, M/M, Marauders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APictureofaGull/pseuds/APictureofaGull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting in winter of Sirius's seventh year. The end of school is on the horizon, war is looming, and Sirius somehow still finds himself with wildly inappropriate feelings for his (second) best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jolly Bad Timing

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically me purging my head-cannon from said head. I incorporated some early pottermore things into it, but this diverges from the 31/07/13 update onwards.
> 
> This is unbeta'd, so if you want to point out spelling/grammar, please do, especially since English is not my first language.
> 
> The chapters might be slow in coming. I have quite a few written, but there are chunks in between I still need to finish.

“I met Lily’s sister and her fiancé when I was up visiting her family,” James told Sirius as he sat across from him at the table in The Leaky Cauldron.

“Mmm,” Sirius responded, into his drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How was that?”

“Mad,” James said flatly. “Lily and I decided to have a nice muggle day out. We took the train from Manchester to London in the morning. We went to the muggle cinema. We saw a brilliant film, Star Wars. It was proper exciting. Really tremendous. There was this – “

“Prongs,” Sirius interrupted, noticing that James was getting caught up in the film. “You were telling me about how you had a jolly old time with mad Evans’s mad family.”

“Right. Yes, it is a brilliant film though. You should go see it,” James insisted.

“ _Prongs!_ ” Sirius said trying to hide his amusement.

“Anyhow, we met Petunia and her fiancé outside the restaurant. Italian muggle food. Pasta, tomato, cheese, that sort of thing. And the fiancé, Vernon, starts talking about his car. And you know I don’t care for muggle transport. Give me a broom any day. Lily had told me Vernon knows I’m a wizard, so I thought this was some sort of cultural exchange programme. He says the car can go... oh I can’t remember, it sounded jolly fast, for a muggle car. Besides, does it really matter how fast the car is when there are rules about how fast you can drive it?”

Sirius rolled his eyes, and took a sip from his flagon. He had sat through this ramble of James’s several times already about the flying motorbike, and muggle transport in general.

“Anyway,” James continued making a point of ignoring Sirius’s reaction. “I kept all that to myself and did my best to sound impressed. I didn’t want to be the one to destroy all the progress I have made in my campaign for Lily’s heart. In the spirit of the aforementioned cultural exchange I gave him a summary of the best, though there are a great many, good points of my glorious Nimbus 1000.”

Sirius nodded, doing his best to be as condescending as possible. He looked down and noticed both he and James and finished their flagons of mead. “I’ll get this round. Try not to wank publicly over the thought of your glorified, charmed cleaning implement while I’m gone.”

When Sirius returned with the round he pressed the second flagon into James’s hands and sat down across from him.

“Cheers,” James muttered absently and took a large swig of his drink. Sirius flicked the front of hands toward James and back again a few times, urging him to continue with the story.

“Right, so, we sit down, order drinks and make chit-chat while looking through the menu. Lily is being terribly nice to Vernon, even though he keeps sneering at her. Twat. Lily is lovely, I don’t understand how anyone would possibly sneer at her Padfoot.” Sirius nodded gravely, he could think of plenty of reasons to sneer at Lily. He did so regularly, but knew James’s opinion that Lily was marvellous in every way was unshakeable.

“She asks him what he does for a living. He talks about his dreadfully mundane muggle profession for absolute yonks. Then he asks me what I do. I tell him I’m in my last year of school, and Lily and I will be battling dark wizards together after we finish school. He asks if that’s a paid position, even though he knew full well that it wasn’t. I said no. By this point Dursely has become even twattier, and Petunia looks she’s about to have an aneurysm. He says something about sponging off hard working people, benefits or some business. I told him I could support myself, money from my parents etc. He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head, and that my second head transfigured his head into a kettle. Anyway, it goes on for a while longer, Dursley and Petunia leave, as if I offended them or something and Lily starts sobbing. A really terrible business.”

Sirius sighed. Something was tugging at his heart, he wasn’t quite sure what it was. It must have been the alcohol upsetting his brain, because he usually would not feel bad Lily Evans, the grand temptress and best mate stealer.

“Anyway, I managed to calm her down. She was well mad, but it all worked out. That Dursley fellow really is utterly ridiculous. Well, so is Petunia really. I can’t see why Lily is so desperate to make nice with her.” There it was again, that mild tugging. Sirius could not be feeling sorry of Lily Evans. He refused.

“How’ve you been. How goes the manhunt?” James’s voice interrupted Sirius’s existential crisis.

“Manhunt?” Sirius raised an eyebrow at James.

“Moony said you planned to go out on the pull during hols.”

Recognition lapped slowly over Sirius. “Eh, not great.”

James shrugged and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Sirius found himself interrupting.

“Really, quite terrible actually. It was no fun at all, didn’t even pull once.”

James’s brows shot up into his shock of black hair. Sirius had just breached their long standing rule, one which had been in place as of an unspoken agreement in fifth year. James was not to go on and on about Lily in front of Sirius, and Sirius was not to go into detail of his “gay frolics” as James and Peter had termed it.

“Have you and Moony had a row?” James asked gravely.

“What?” Sirius was now thoroughly confused. He thought he might have mistakenly broken James’s brain when he broke their unspoken contract.

“Sorry, it’s not that I don’t want to talk to you about your exploits. Really, I am actually quite curious, but I know you still don’t want to hear about Lily so I thought we’d keep The Ban in place. It’s just, you always talk to Remus about it, never me. It makes sense, what with Remus going with the Ravenclaw quidditch captain, Robards, last year. What was his name? Gavin?”

Sirius could see James wasn’t going to come to the correct conclusion quickly. “Gawain Robards,” he supplied.

James nodded. “That was it. Nice chap, hell of a keeper.” He paused, and returned to his earlier train of thought. “I was just worried you and Moony weren’t talking. I heard from Peter that you walked in on Moony breaking it off with Pauline, and he was ... less than thrilled.”

“That, oh, no. That’s sorted. Remus and I just flooed before I came down here to meet you, actually. Honestly Prongs, not everyone is as sensitive as you.” Sirius launched into a full exaggerated pantomime of James’s angst filled fifth and six years at hogwarts with constant rejection from Lily. Sirius played the part of James, whilst his left hand was Lily, and his right Sirius.

James snorted into his drink. Sirius joined him in dissolving into giggles like a small child. While Sirius was lost in the laughter he saw James’s expression begin to shift. James was thinking, that was dangerous, Sirius realised. He scrambled to come up with something to say to interrupt James’s train of thought.

“Bugger!” It wasn’t particularly eloquent, but at least it was accurate description of how he felt.

“Then why do you want to talk to me now?”James asked.

Sirius tried not to let his panic show on his face. “Because you’re my best mate.”

“No. I’ve been your best mate since Thursday, the fourth week of first year. Why now?”

James was being more persistent than Sirius was entirely comfortable with. He tried to speak, but James continued before Sirius had a chance to make a sound.

“You fancy someone.” James stated matter-of-factly. His face lit with a mischievous smile, an obvious reaction to the panic that Sirius had hoped was not plastered all over his face.

“Someone you don’t want to talk to Remus about, since he’s been your confidant up until now.” Sirius began rapping his fingers against the sides of his flagon and looking around the pub as James continued to correctly guess everything about him. Sirius cursed their closeness and how well they understood each other.

James was absorbed in what he perceived as a great puzzle and completely oblivious to Sirius’s distress. “Robards, that would be awkward to discuss with Remus. But I don’t think you could do that, you’re too loyal. You’d see that as a breach of trust…”

Sirius sighed with relief as he realised James’s thoughts had retreated back into his head. He felt safer when James wasn’t spilling Sirius’s private life all over The Leaky Cauldron.

Suddenly James frowned. He looked worriedly at Sirius. “Surely not…”

He must have figured it out. The look of disgust on James’s face at that moment was just like the one Sirius had seen in his mind when he imagined telling James about his feelings. This is exactly why he hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

“ _Snivellus_ ,” James hissed. Barely audible, as if just saying the name caused him pain.

Sirius felt a sudden rush of relief, caught up in the moment he barked a hearty, desperate laugh. “No! Oh Merlin, no Prongs. No."

James’s gruff laughter joined Sirius’s. “Good, good.” He stopped to let himself be swallowed by his own laughter again “Merlin’s red festive pants, I have never been happier to be wrong in my _life.”_

“I can’t believe you even had that idea,” Sirius wheezed between fits of laughter.

Finally, Sirius decided that it was time he acted like a Gryffindor. He paused, and then downed the rest of his mead. Dutch courage, he thought, but James beat him to it.

“Remus!” James shouted triumphantly, shoving his right fist into the air as if he had just caught the snitch. James seemed to realise what he was doing just as everyone in the pub turned to look at him. Sirius sank low in his chair as James muttered an apology to the rest of the room.

“Sirius.” James stared into Sirius’s face.

The look felt like it was burning a hole in the centre of Sirius’s eyes. After fighting the urge for a few seconds, he broke James’s gaze, conceding defeat.

“Yes. Remus.” In some way it was a relief to tell James, even if he didn’t know how James would react to his terrible confession.

“Merlin,” James whispered.

“Precisely.” Promptly, Sirius let his head fall into his waiting hands.

“You think I’m terrible, don’t you? I have violated the trust at the core of our friendship,” Sirius blurted, while still covering his face with his hands.

“No. Pads. Sirius. No.” James said voice brimming with pity. He reached out and grabbed Sirius’s arm and dragged it toward him. “C’mon Pads. Look at me.”

Slowly, Sirius did as he was told. Afraid as he was to see what his best friend thought of him, something, maybe the dog in him could not help seeing obeying as a sign of loyalty.

“Look Pads. It’s not a betrayal of friendship. Attraction is attraction, it’s not like you’ve said you don’t value Moony’s friendship. I mean, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be this upset about the whole business.” James smiled at him reassuringly.

Sirius returned the smile, weakly. “I guess you’re right.”

“Always am.” James stated. The cheeky grin on James’s face made Sirius beam in spite of himself.

Still smiling he mused about how grateful he was to have James as a best friend while trying to catch the bubbles on the walls of his flagon with the remaining mead.

“Are you going to tell him?” James asked as Sirius sloshed the mead around in his flagon.

“Who?”

“Moony.”

“Oh.” An involuntary sigh forced its way out of Sirius's lungs. “I don’t think so.”

“Because of Pauline?”

Sirius shook his head. “Remus isn’t actually all that upset about that. He’d been meaning to break it off for a while.”

“No one tells me anything anymore,” James moaned.

“You know Remus. He thinks he’s burdening us with his problems when he tells us anything about him.”

James nodded his agreement into his sip of mead.

“Do you think you’ll stop fancying him? Is that why you haven’t said anything?” James asked as a way to move the conversation beyond the awkward point.

“That’s what I thought at first. I thought it was because I only talk about men with Remus, so my brain went and made a ridiculous connection between Remus and shagging. I thought I’d leave for the holiday, go out, meet some lads and it would be over.”

“I wish I could have gone with you” James said in a piteous voice.

“You’re practically married. And, Evans isn’t exactly my biggest fan. I doubt she would be happy to have you out at muggle gay pubs all night with me, trying to pick up blokes.”

“True,” James conceded. “You and Lily need to become friends because that sounds like a smashing night.”

Sirius made a face. He wasn’t sure what disturbed him more, the idea of being friends with Lily, or the image of James trying to act cool at a muggle pub.

“Anyway, I’ve done that and it was awful. Head-Sirius kept whinging about how he’d rather be with Remus and went on and on about how the entire affair was pointless and dull.”

“So you don’t want to tell him because you think you have actual real feelings for him?” James was making his ‘Sirius is off his nut’ face.

“Exactly.” Sirius made a point of ignoring James’s expression. He prodded the condensation rings on the table absently for a few seconds before deciding to change the subject. “Are you going to Remus’s for the full moon?”

James made a face that Sirius knew meant he was trying to do mental arithmancy.

“Christmas Eve,” Sirius supplied in the hope that James wouldn’t strain something.

“Oh,” James said sadly. “No, I can’t. It’s my last Christmas at school. Mum would have an aneurysm if I even asked.”

“Peter said the same when I asked him.”

“Mum’s going to have an aneurysm when you don’t come for Christmas.” James pointed out unhelpfully. “I won’t be the one to tell her. You have to, and soon as well.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow at James, indicating that James had veered off on a less than serious tangent. “I will. Don’t worry. I’ll be around at yours for Boxing Day. Moony needs someone there for him Prongs.”

“I know, I know. It’s just jolly bad timing.”


	2. Unpleasantness can't be put on hold

Sirius rushed through the bitter morning wind, making his clothes billow around him and whip at his skin. His motorbike screamed as he directed it sharply toward the small clearing the Lupins’ garden made in the surrounding wood. The wheels met the soft earth of the back garden with a muffled thud. Sirius dismounted, and steered the bike to the edge of the clearing, placing it under the shelter of a large tree. In an attempt to look less wind-swept, he ran his fingers through his hair and robes. A quick glance in the left wing mirror confirmed that he looked dashing as ever. Sirius grabbed the tin of Mrs. Potter’s famous crackling ginger newts she had given him as a present for Mr. Lupin. The big red bow was slightly crinkled from the journey so Sirius tapped it lightly with his wand and whispered a quick charm to restore it to it’s former glory.

One more sharp intake of breath and Sirius started making his way toward the house. John Lupin was already standing at the back door in his navy blue dressing gown. “Good to see you Sirius.” He called out, smiling.

“Good to see you too Mr. Lupin! Thank you for letting me join you for Christmas.” Sirius quickened his pace to ensure he would reach the back door just as he finished speaking, in an effort to avoid the awkward pause which could happen between the verbal greeting and the physical one.

Mr. Lupin grasped Sirius’s hand firmly and shook it. “Don’t mention it. We’re glad to have you.”

Sirius smiled his appreciation. “Here, these are for you,” he said, handing Mr. Lupin the tin of biscuits. “From Mrs. Potter. They’re her speciality.”

“Oh, how wonderful. I’ll have to owl her.” Mr. Lupin paused for a moment. “Remus isn’t actually in at the moment. He’s gone to the apothecary in Finlaggan.” He paused again. “He’s been gone longer than I expected. I think he must have met someone. I don’t imagine he’ll be out much longer. Would you like to wait? I could put the kettle on.” 

Sirius could see Mr. Lupin was concerned, but was making an effort not to upset Sirius. That would explain why he had materialised so quickly when he had heard noises in the garden. It was unlike Remus to be gone longer than he originally planned, especially the day of the full moon when he was usually tired and nervous.

“That’s very kind. No thank you. I think I’ll go into town and find him. That is, if you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not, please do.” Mr. Lupin paused thoughtfully. “I can’t remember, have you been before?”

Finlaggan was an unremarkable, small gathering of wizarding shops on Islay, not far from the Lupins’ home. Remus always described it as little more than a pub and an owl post office. Sirius had never been inclined to go on his various short visits. “I haven’t, no.”

“I suggest you don’t apparate. Not that I don’t think you’re capable,” Mr. Lupin added quickly. “There is a muggle tourist attraction close by on Loch Finlaggan. A few times a year wizards who haven’t been before apparate to the tourist attraction instead. It keeps the Improper Use of Magic Office busy.”

Sirius couldn’t contain a smile. The idea of wizards suddenly appearing in the background of muggle families’ holiday photos tickled him. Luckily, Mr. Lupin was smiling as well. It seemed that despite the fact that the Improper use of Magic Office was under the same departmental umbrella as John Lupin and his colleagues at the Auror Office he found their pain enjoyable. Or maybe, Sirius mused, that was exactly why.

“Right. No apparating then, wouldn’t want to embarrass myself on Christmas Eve.” Sirius was still smiling as he looked out into the yard to see if he could see a path in the woods that might lead into town. 

Mr. Lupin must have noticed. “There isn’t a path per-say. Use lumos. The spruce will glow green, orange or red in the direction of town. It’s a clever little spell Remus came up with.” Mr. Lupin beamed.

Sirius waved good-bye to Mr. Lupin and jogged off into the woods, wand out. It was a short jog, made very simple by the glowing green trees. Before Sirius had time to think about where he was going to start looking for Remus, he had already spotted him through the window of the Lord of the Isles pub. 

Remus looked tired as Sirius expected, but also more unexpectedly, happy and serene. He had a champagne flute in one hand, and his other arm around a woman. It was a second before Sirius recognised her as their fellow seventh year Gryffindor Marlene Jones, one of Lily’s set. 

Using his shoulder, Sirius pushed open the door to the Lord of the Isles, and enjoyed the rush of warm air as it seemed to pass him into the bitter cold outside. He hung his coat on one of the many hooks by the door and made his way toward Remus. The cold always stained his cheeks what Sirius thought was a rather fetching shade of red, so he hastened to make sure Remus would see him before the effect wore off. As he came closer he realised that there was another familiar face in Remus’s party, Marlene’s boyfriend and Remus’s childhood friend Ian McKinnon, a Ravenclaw who had left Hogwarts the year before. Marlene and Ian also had champagne flutes in their hands and were beaming at each other.

Shortly before Sirius reached the group of friends, he caught Remus’s eye. Remus looked displeased for a second, then said “Dad!” a bit too loudly.

“No, I’m your friend, Sirius,” Sirius said before he could stop himself. He cringed inwardly at having said it.

“No, you twat.” Remus chided, echoing Sirius’s conscience. “I need to floo Dad and tell him I’m alright. I’ll be right back.” Remus clapped Sirius on the shoulder and smiled before making his way toward the fireplace at the back of the room.

Before Sirius had a chance to try greet Marlene and Ian, Marlene shoved her left hand up into Sirius’s face. “We’re engaged!” she practically exploded at him. On her finger was a delicate gold band with a small stone in the centre, Sirius went about inspecting it and making what his good breeding told him were the right noises. Ian made a show of rolling his eyes, and gave Sirius a conspiratorial look as if to say “oh, women” but Sirius could see Ian was beaming just as much, if not more than, Marlene.

“Congratulations!” Sirius said as he shook Ian’s hand and gave him a one armed hug. He then turned to Marlene and kissed her once on each cheek while saying “Best wishes.”

Sirius pulled out what had been Remus’s stool and sat down next to Marlene. They talked of wedding plans and the exact details of the proposal until Remus returned.

“Sirius, where am I supposed to sit?” Remus demanded, pointing at the velvet cushioned stool Sirius had claimed for himself.

“My lap,” Sirius stated, all nonchalance. The reply had left his mouth before his brain even had time to think about it. He was always needling people with remarks like that, only this time he wasn’t sure what he would do if Remus took him at his word. It was all he could do to keep what he hoped was a cheeky grin planted firmly on his features.

“Twat.” Remus shook his head at Sirius and gave Sirius the look the rest of the marauders liked to call Remus’s ‘prefect disapproval face’ as he pulled another stool over from a neighbouring table.

“Not to upset everyone, but I thought you should know that Dad says there was another attack in the early hours of this morning. His boss owled him after Sirius left.” Remus’s hand fingered the scar on his left cheek nervously as he spoke. 

Marlene nodded grimly, her lips drawn thin. “I spoke to Gideon and Fabian a few days ago. They said all intelligence lead The Order to believe that the attacks were going to continue over Christmas.”

“Did your dad say who?” Ian asked. 

Sirius distinctly felt that he did not want to know. He wished the unpleasantness could be put on hold until after Christmas, once he had dealt with getting Remus through this transformation alone, yet he could not stop himself from listening intently.

“Linda Rosier and her partner Petra Stone, a muggle. She writes a muggle news for wizards column in The Prophet,” Remus began. “She survived, she’s at St. Mungos being treated for severe burns, but Dad says Petra didn’t make it.” Sirius felt himself grimace involuntarily. 

The conversation continued in hushed whispers on the current theme for a further twenty minutes before Marlene declared that they had all best be with their families. Once outside they said their goodbyes and Ian and Marlene linked arms and disapparated with thundering crack.

“Right,” Remus said. “Back through the forest with us.”

Sirius nodded. It would have been simple for them to apparate back to the house, or even to floo from the pub. The fact that Remus wanted to walk back made Sirius think he wanted to talk about something, something Remus didn’t want to say in front of his father. Sirius did not have the slightest inkling what Remus might want to speak to him about, but a treacherous part of his mind whispered that James and told Remus about Sirius’s feelings. Breathing in a few times he collected himself, he reminded himself that James was his best friend and would never do that to him. After his senses returned to him, Sirius decided that the best course of action was to wait to see what Remus actually had on his mind before jumping to conclusions.

Before he had the opportunity to speak the trees glowing in the light of Remus’s wand as they approached caught Sirius’s eye. Unlike the uniform green glow they gave off on Sirius’s way out, they now glowed orange with a bright white ring in the centre. “Why is it doing that?”

Remus paused a moment before he understood that Sirius was asking about the trees. “It’s part of the enchantment,” he explained. “They glow green when there is no danger in the woods, orange when there is no active threat but something that could develop and red when there is an active danger. That zero tells you how far away you are from the threat.”

“So, there’s something out there?” Sirius furrowed his brow. Remus seemed completely nonplussed about a potential threat which was practically on top of them.

“Oh, yes, it’s me.” Remus explained. “Lycanthrope in human form, potential threat, but nothing to worry about.”

Sirius shook his head, he knew that Remus had the knowledge and skill to add an exception to a spell like this to remove himself from the list of dangers, but being Remus he could not accept that he was not dangerous. When they were younger, Sirius had to suppress the urge to throttle Remus every time he spoke like this, now it made Sirius profoundly sad to know Remus’s unshakable opinion of himself, and he avoided the subject whenever possible.

“Lily and James are next then, I suppose.” Remus interrupted Sirius’s thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“To get engaged. Like Marlene and Ian.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Sirius. Unlike Remus, Sirius had trouble remembering that a future existed, and life wasn’t made up entirely of the present and past. “I suppose you’re right,” he agreed, after a moment.

“A lot of people are. If you look at the family announcements section of The Prophet, it’s absolutely exploded compared to five years ago. It’s not just the added death announcements; it’s almost all births, engagements and weddings.” Again, Remus had managed to notice a phenomenon which had completely escaped Sirius’s attention, even though he had been reading The Prophet with almost religious regularity with his breakfast since was sixteen. While Sirius and James might be more talented at magic, Sirius mused, Remus had unparalleled broad intelligence which was sadly undervalued in the magical world.

“So, lots of people are getting married and having children. People are scared Remus, it’s only natural to cling to those they love.”

“Yes, or you could think about it this way. Wizards live longer than muggles, so we tend to get married and have children much later than them as well, on average. It’s because we have more time in which to do those things. The marriages and births in The Prophet generally feature couples in their early twenties. I might be wrong, but to me it feels like wizards are now expecting to die younger.”

“That’s incredibly dark Remus. Incredibly.” Sirius suppressed a shudder, trying to pass it off as a shrug.

“But you don’t disagree?” 

“No, I guess I don’t.” Sirius said after some thought. He was never really comfortable with the dark, pessimistic side of Remus’s personality which had a tendency to materialise shortly before the full moon. Sirius liked to tell himself it was because there was nothing he could do to cheer Remus up, but in this moment he believed that his discomfort was based on the degree of darkness Remus seemed to have within him.

Remus must have noticed he was unnerving Sirius, he put his hand on Sirius’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “I don’t think it’s a conscious thought.”

“Are you doing the opposite then? Is that why you broke it off with Pauline?”

Remus sighed. “No, it is probably my way of following the trend, actually. It came to the point where I started daydreaming about telling her about, well tonight, like I always do, and I realised that I just did not want to tell her. It’s not that I was afraid of her reaction, this is very silly, but I just didn’t think it was any of her business. I broke up with her so I could spend more time with the people I care about. Like you, James and Peter.”

Sirius felt his chest tighten and the sound of Remus saying “Like you” echoed in his mind. Luckily, his dopey smile could be misconstrued as a dopey smile of friendship. Remus squeezed his shoulder again as they reached the Lupin’s garden. Remus pulled Sirius aside before they walked out of the trees.

“Sirius, you need to make more of an effort with Lily.” Remus looked grave.

Sirius rolled his eyes. Remus grabbed Sirius’s shoulder and looked him in the eye, his voice voice was deadly serious. “I mean it Sirius, you had better make nice with Lily, otherwise James might be forced to choose between you, and you might not like the outcome.”

Sirius wrenched his shoulder free. “She never makes an effort with me,” he spat. “Evans is the newcomer, she should be the one to make the effort.”

Remus shook his head. “She did Sirius, when they were first going out. That’s why she and Peter are friends now. She gave up after a month, and I don’t blame her.”

Crossing his arms, Sirius continued to glare at Remus. “You’re stubborn as a centaur,” Remus told him. “Look Sirius, you don’t need to listen to me, but I think you best had.” 

Sirius brushed passed Remus and into the garden, there was no way that James would chose Evans over him. Remus was being silly.

For the rest of the afternoon Sirius was preoccupied with the thought that maybe his feelings for Remus were born of the phenomena Remus had described. He wondered if they were destined to fade after whatever happened happened, making any sort of action on his part doubly stupid. His only consolation was that this kept him from worrying if Padfoot would be able to control Remus in wolf form alone as, despite reassuring Mr. Lupin otherwise, he had never attempted it before.


End file.
